Not just because he is a vile sexual pervert, nor even because our taxes will almost certainly go to pay for his 24-hour-a-day protection.

Worse still, his arrival has unmasked the sickening opportunism at the heart of this increasingly desperate and morally bankrupt government.

Like some modern day Ned Kelly, the renegade Glitter has been bounced from one country to another following his release from a Vietnamese prison after three years for molesting young girls.

His beaming smiles and outrageous demands prove he is loving every minute of his status as the World’s Most Unwanted Man.

And yet, who gave this reptilian exhibitionist the oxygen of publicity? Who propelled him to world notoriety and made his claims for state protection legitimate?

Step forward Home Secretary Jacqui Smith. Instead of allowing Glitter to return to Britain with minimum fuss, to be placed on the child sex offenders’ register, she thought this might be an ideal chance to earn a few Brownie points through a bit of high-profile paedo-bashing.

So on the day Glitter should have returned here, she announced a headline-grabbing initiative to stop convicted British paedophiles travelling abroad.

Yes, she got the headlines she wanted. But she also spooked Glitter, who refused to return until yesterday.

The result? We have the worst of all worlds — another paedophile in our midst while we pay for the privilege of protecting him from the frenzy Ms Smith helped whip up.

Oh, and to cap it all, it emerges that Glitter will be able to travel abroad.

Nor was that the end of the Home Secretary’s spectacularly incompetent week. Yesterday we learned that the personal details of 130,000 of our most dangerous criminals have gone missing.

What a farce.

Ms Smith has distinguished herself by lacking the intellect, personality or authority for the job.

So why hasn’t she been forced to resign? Answer: Because she is Gordon Brown’s mate, and when you have as few political allies as our PM, you need all the friends you can get.

Brown vowed his tenure would mark the beginning of a different kind of politics. Too right!

But who could have imagined those politics would end up sinking to the stage where paedophiles such as Gary Glitter are treated not so much as a problem as a political lifeline.

Labour’s lesson in class hatred.

Despite a massive increase in funding, one in five 11-year-olds can’t read or write.

Yet critics of our failing state education system are accused by the unctuous schools minister Lord Adonis of ‘class-based elitism that wants to cap the aspirations of the less advantaged’.

This from a government hell-bent on destroying the best opportunities working-class children have to succeed: grammar and church schools.

It’s the last bastion of the political scoundrel to use elitism as a form of abuse. Our children deserve better.

Boris Johnson's staff failed to get him upgraded on his economy flight to Beijing, leaving fellow passengers to describe the London mayor as looking ‘totally dishevelled’ when he arrived. As opposed to what, exactly?

Elegant and eloquent: Gabby Logan

Golden girl Gabby

The BBC devoted more of its daily Olympics highlights show to Gabby Logan than any of the individual sporting events, except perhaps Michael Phelps.

And why not!

Gabby proved to be pure TV gold.

Elegant and eloquent, she is a well-informed, well-adjusted female presenter who looks fabulous, but not as though she is about to lick your husband.

Yes, I do mean you, Emily Maitlis.

Olympic watch

As we watch the Olympic closing ceremony tomorrow, spare a thought for two little old grannies who were forcibly evicted from their homes to make way for the Bird’s Nest Stadium.

The Chinese pensioners, both in their late 70s, were imprisoned without trial and sentenced to a year’s ‘re- education through labour’ for their obstinacy.

In China, it’s not just athletes who make the ultimate sacrifice.

For Australians, ‘Good on you, sport’ was always the greatest compliment. Sadly, they seem to have forgotten to apply it to their own antics.

By accusing the Brits of a lack of courage (and cleanliness) in Beijing, the men from Down Under have demonstrated the quality they least admire in the Poms.

They’ve turned into a bunch of whingeing Aussies

Former deputy PM John Prescott has interviewed fading glamour model Jodie Marsh (both pictured) for an upcoming BBC series on class.

A nation awaits this pair’s contribution to sociological discourse.

And there was me thinking Jodie’s idea of class is when a girl shuts the car door before having sex, while Prezza’s is doing a naked belly flop onto the typing pool.

Cynics thought the shotgun marriage between Peaches Geldof and wannabe rock star Max Nobody was a match made in PR heaven.

Not so, said the groom. He wanted his forthcoming British tour ‘to pass without too much attention on him and Peaches’.

Lo and behold, though they were unheard of just a few weeks ago, his band’s tour is a sell-out. Must be love.

Good riddance

ITV is said to be on the brink of axing Trinny and Susannah, two weeks after I called for an end to their misogyny TV.

One reader wrote to me, saying: ‘Life is too short to be perpetuating the myth that all women have to offer is their physical form and not their compassion, patience, resilience and all the other attributes which seem to have bypassed Trinny and Tranny.’

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

Westminster Noticeboard . . .

Gordon Brown promises to help ‘struggling families’ with their mortgage, gas and electricity bills. But hold on!

Before you get excited, Gordon doesn’t mean the millions of middleclass families who have borne the brunt of his stealth taxes.

No, he wants to help only the working-class folk who, yes, are primarily Labour voters.

Which is a bit like the captain of the Titanic stuffing the lifeboats with friends

and family only, while the rest of us are abandoned to the icy waters of the recession.

Tory leader David Cameron’s response to the Russian invasion is to say that if he were Prime Minister, he’d ban Russians from making shopping trips to London.

I hardly think stopping the oligarchs’ wives from visiting his wife’s Bond Street stationery shop will have the Kremlin trembling in their jackboots.

Kate’s last dance?

Prince William refuses to dance with Waitey Katey as he tells friends ‘she’s too good for me’. Dangerous territory, Kate.

The Wales men need to come first in everything.

That’s why Diana had to go. M

y advice? Take a leaf out of Camilla’s book. She went as far as pretending to Charles that she couldn’t use the DVD player so she wouldn’t make her technically illiterate husband feel utterly useless.

If you want that ring on your finger, Kate, drop the disco diva act and develop a club foot on the dancefloor pronto.

Jade Goody was told on Indian Big Brother that she had cervical cancer, with her every emotion later shown on TV at her request.

Which can only make even the most sceptical among us hope that this Frankenstein child, conceived from monster reality TV shows, will finally use her notoriety for some good.

Kylie Minogue used her fame sparingly and with great dignity to promote understanding of breast cancer.